Umm ... that was fast!
We're buying an apartment! (72)
Call it what you will: God or the universe, destiny or karma, fate or coincidence. Whatever word your belief system allows for applies to our apartment search.
If you haven’t already read our post on how we found the apartment we’re renting now, and/or our post about the current real estate market, doing so will give you some background for the process we’ve been through to find our next home.
Before we get too into the weeds today, though, we need to back up a bit.
In January, some good friends of ours showed us the neighborhood they were buying an apartment in. Their unit wasn’t ready for occupancy yet but they took us to the building and walked us through some of the nearby parks and streets. It was a vibrant area - active but not noisy that night - and the building looked beautiful from the outside - well-lit and freshly painted. We were really happy for them. There was new construction going up a block or two down the road and we logged that as a “place to keep an eye on” for our own apartment search. Which we thought might happen. At some point in the undetermined future.
After returning from Braga two weeks ago, we embarked on that apartment search in earnest and the basic steps we followed were nearly identical to the ones we employed last year from St. Louis. Once we were (reasonably) clear on what we did and did not want in a unit, Amy used Idealista and Imovirtual to locate listings for dozens of properties in both Lisbon and Braga. She narrowed these down to 6-8 in each city that looked viable. We organized these into a spreadsheet and shared it with our real estate agents.
Yes, agents. Plural. And, again, we need to back up a smidge.
Heather, our agent extraordinaire, has been in another part of Portugal for the last few weeks. Since we were moving rapidly towards viewing actual places (more rapidly than any of us anticipated), she connected us to her partner Malika, who has been equally wonderful. We had a video call with both of them and were talking about what was important to us in an apartment when Heather said, “You two should really look at this unit I was expecting another client of mine to buy. She just backed out, though, so nobody else even knows this place is available yet.” She sent us the address and a video of the apartment’s interior she’d made for the other client. We liked it enough - if nothing else, we figured it would serve as a good benchmark for future visits. Malika made a call and arranged for us to go look at the unit a couple of days later.
And so it was that ten days ago we headed towards our first in-person apartment viewing ever, chatting excitedly away and keeping half an eye on our Google Maps directions until we reached our destination. Where we stood, mouths agape, looking at the same building our friends are moving into.
On our most-recent trip to Braga, we’d tried to connect with a couple of people we thought would have helpful information for us about the potential future church there and the social scene in general. We had exchanged messages with both a couple of times earlier in the year. Two weeks ago, though, neither of them followed up when we asked if we could get together while we were in town.
We’ve been praying for direction and asking God to make that direction obvious to us as we’re not particularly good at reading the divine tea leaves. As we stood on the sidewalk waiting for Malika and reflecting on our trip to Braga a few days prior, it certainly felt like we were getting some pretty powerful messages about where to live.
And then we went in to see the actual apartment.
Which was a no-go from the moment we opened the door.
It was a T1 (one-bedroom in Portuguese parlance), that was a little larger than our current place but somehow didn’t manage to feel it. A lot of the extra space was taken up by a long, narrow hallway and a larger-than-necessary bathroom. The bedroom felt smaller than the one we have now - there was no place to put something like a chair. Unit 1 just wasn’t going to work. Which is fine because it was actually too expensive for our budget.
We’d gone to the viewing prepared to tell Heather and Malika that we’d given some more thought to pricing and we needed to reduce our top-end dollar amount for future searches. For the entirety of our relationship we’ve described ourselves as a couple by saying that one of us is frugal, the other is downright cheap. Fiscal conservatism has been our lodestar and we spend a fair amount of time talking ourselves down from purchases. There’s usually a gap - often a significant one - between what we can afford to spend and what we are willing to spend. This dissonance was rearing its head pretty seriously as we wrapped our minds around the apartment search. The asking price on Unit 1 was just a bit over our new, self-imposed price cap. So we weren’t too crushed to not like it.
The listing agent mentioned there were other units available in the building; did we want to see any of those? For example, the one directly above the “no-go” was a T2 that was slightly larger (and more expensive). Sure, why not? We’re in the building. No harm in looking, right? More benchmarks for the rest of our search.
We hoofed it up another flight of stairs and were baffled by the layout of Unit 2. Amy had thought to bring a tape measure along so for fun we looked up the dimensions of beds in Portugal and unfurled the tape onto the floor. Literally, there was no way to fit a queen bed in the master bedroom and have space to get in and out of it. The second bedroom was smaller still and had no closet. Unit 2 was also a no-go. Which is too bad because it had an astonishing view of the city.
Next, we went back down a flight of stairs (the elevator wasn’t working; the building wasn’t occupied yet) and across the hall from Unit 1 to look at Unit 3 - a second, larger-still T2.
We walked in and it felt like home.
There are windows on three sides of the apartment - practically unheard of around here - and the views range from peaceful to inspiring. The living/dining/kitchen area is spacious enough to allow for multiple tables on a game night, or a larger sitting for a dinner party. Both bedrooms have ample closet space. There are a variety of nooks where we can grow plants, store extra folding chairs, or just sit and look out a window. And, yes, its got the coveted A energy rating. Bonus: it’s only a kilometer (.62 miles) from our current apartment.1 All of the objections surrounding our price cap evaporated: this was the place.
It’s not perfect (nothing is). We thought we lived on a hill now; this hill was the training wheels for the one we’re moving to. We’ll have to take stairs inside the building - there are seven from the entrance to the elevator. We don’t love the kitchen (we’re picky about kitchens). And parking a car in the immediate area would be a challenge (fine for us, could limit resale).
The only remaining question was, is it creepy to move into the same building our friends have had dibs on for months? Those fears were put to rest at a lovely lunch at Granos Espaço Vegetariano the following day - they were totally on board with having us in the building and by the end of the meal were making plans to abscond with Josie at every available opportunity😄.
We’re still in the early stages of the deal. We feel ok talking about it now because we’ve given notice to our current landlord.2 If all goes to plan, we could have the keys by mid-May.
That’s all for now.
Love from Lisbon,
Scott & Amy
Which makes this our second-shortest-distance house move.
Our last day here will be June 5 and the rent will be 1,250€/month. It’s a good deal for a place in a highly desirable area. If you’re interested in learning more, drop us a line.
Please accept my belated congratulation! Very nice layout! I hope I can stop being so picky and find something soon too :-)
You'll have beautiful light in the new place and, while you might not love the kitchen, it is at least neutral in color.